As soon as I could control my merriment caused by this halting and very careful explanation, I went down to luncheon. I didn’t mind and Will’s mother didn’t mind, but the expression on the face of Jackson, the negro butler, was almost too much for my gravity. I will say that the porter had excellent manners and the luncheon passed off without excitement.
We made a short visit at my mother’s on Pike Street before we moved into our new house on McMillan Street; but we began the year of 1887 under our own roof which, though it was mortgaged, was to us, for the time being, most satisfactory.
II
Cincinnati and Washington
One day after we had been married less than a year my husband came home looking so studiously unconcerned that I knew at once he had something to tell me.
“Nellie, what would you think,” he began casually, “if I should be appointed a Judge of the Superior Court?”
“Oh, don’t try to be funny,” I exclaimed. “That’s perfectly impossible.”
But it was not impossible, as he soon convinced me. My father had just refused the same appointment and it was difficult to believe that it could now be offered to my husband who was only twenty-nine years old. It was a position made vacant by the retirement from the Bench of Judge Judson Harmon who was my husband’s senior by more than a decade.
One of the most prominent and prosperous law firms in Cincinnati was that of Hoadley, Johnston and Colston, and both Mr. Hoadley and Mr. Johnston had been invited to go to New York and become partners of Mr. Edward Lauterbach who was then doing an enormous business.
They went, and the old firm in Cincinnati being broken up, Mr. Colston asked Judge Harmon, who was then on the Superior Court, to take Mr. Hoadley’s place. Mr. Harmon decided to do so, but he was anxious to resign his judgeship in such a way as to leave a long enough vacancy to attract a good man. It was an elective office and the law provided that a vacancy occurring within thirty days before election could not be filled by an election until the following year. Judge Harmon resigned so as to make the appointment for a period of fourteen months. After my father declined it, the choice lay between Mr. Taft and Mr. Bellamy Storer. Mr. Taft always thought that but for his opportunity in the Campbell case Judge Hannon would not have recommended him and Governor Foraker would not have appointed him. That is why he says he traces all his success back to that occasion. Mr. Foraker was opposing counsel in the Campbell case, but he had a lawyer’s appreciation for a lawyer’s effort.
After the first pleased surprise at the honour which came to us so unexpectedly I began to think; and my thinking led me to decide that my husband’s appointment on the Bench was not a matter for such warm congratulation after all. I saw him in close association with men not one of whom was less than fifteen years older than he, and most of whom were much more than that. He seemed to me suddenly to take on a maturity and sedateness quite out of keeping with his actual years and I dreaded to see him settled for good in the judiciary and missing all the youthful enthusiasms and exhilarating difficulties which a more general contact with the world would have given him. In other words, I began even then to fear the narrowing effects of the Bench and to prefer for him a diverse experience which would give him an all-round professional development.
He did not share this feeling in any way. His appointment on the Superior Court was to him the welcome beginning of just the career he wanted. After serving the interim of fourteen months he became a candidate for the office and was elected for a term of five years. This was the only elective office Mr. Taft ever held until he became President.
My own time and interest during that winter was largely spent on my house. We had been very particular about the plans for it and had fully intended that it should combine outward impressiveness with inward roominess and comfort. It was a frame structure, shingled all over, and with certain bay window effects which pleased me exceedingly. In fact, with our assistance, the architect had made a special effort to produce something original and, while I don’t claim that the result was a conspicuous architectural success, to my mind it was anything but a failure. And our view of the Ohio River and the surrounding country was really superb.
But I was not destined to enjoy my satisfaction with my surroundings very long. The section had been at one time a stone quarry, and the man who had levelled off the land and filled in the gulches made by the quarry operations, took as a part of his compensation two building lots which happened to be just across the street from ours. He forthwith proceeded to put up a sort of double house which looked more like a gigantic dry-goods box than anything else, and I felt that it quite robbed the neighbourhood of the “tone” which I had confidently hoped our house would give it. The double house had just one quality and that was size.
I think the owner, whose name was Jerry something, lived in one side of it, and he had a tenant in the other who hung clothes out of the front windows. But tastes in architecture differ, as we soon found out.
We were paying taxes on our house at an assessed value of $4,000 and the undervaluation had been troubling my husband’s conscience for
